CIM announces new Masters level apprenticeship to address the UK marketing skills gap

Senior leader apprenticeship course to address the UK marketing skills gap

The senior leader level 7 apprenticeship standard comes at a time when research has shown some senior marketers have fallen behind on both core marketing and digital marketing skills.

CIM worked with Target Internet to benchmark the digital skills of 9,000 professional marketers and surveyed an additional 1,200 marketing professionals regarding their core marketing skills and training requirements, as part of its Impact of Marketing 2 research.

This course was designed to meet the requirements of the Level 7 Senior Leader apprenticeship standard which was recently redesigned by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IFATE). Cranfield is the largest academic provider of the senior management apprenticeship standard with some 700 students already enrolled.

The reports concluded that senior marketers need to upskill themselves in order to keep up with changes in the sector:

• Core marketing skills – required to engage the board are waning, with almost half of marketers (44%) are finding it difficult to keep up at a time of dramatic transformation in the sector, while one third have received no training for over two years 

• Digital skills – among heads of department have fallen across many digital disciplines, most dramatically in areas such as SEO. Key digital skills like social and usability are becoming more complex, creating a knowledge gap

Discussing the announcement, Maggie Jones, Director of Qualifications and Partnerships at CIM said:

“The news that businesses can now access apprenticeship funding to support marketers wherever they are on their career journey; from the marketing basics all the way to senior decision-makers is good news.”

“At CIM we believe in the importance of professional marketing training to ensure consistency and quality in the standard of marketing at all levels. Our partnership with Cranfield University will help further professionalise the marketing industry driving excellence at the highest level of business.”

Vasilis Theoharakis, Professor of Strategic Marketing and Director of the MSc in Marketing and Leadership at Cranfield University said:

“We are excited about the launch of first master’s-level senior leader marketing apprenticeship in the UK. The response from both individuals and organisations has been very positive. Senior marketers are keen to upskill themselves to be able to deliver strategic advice that cuts across the enterprise, while organisations are keen to use the course to build better, more efficient teams and leaders who have a broad understanding of not just marketing but how the board thinks and operates.”

CIM awarded end-point assessor status   

Having worked on the development of the marketing apprenticeships since its inception, The Chartered Institute of Marketing has received independent end-point assessor organisation (EPAO) status.

By becoming an EPAO, CIM is responsible for assessing apprentices at the end of their course. As the world’s leading professional body for marketing CIM is the ideal organisation to oversee consistency in the assessment of apprenticeships.